You’ll never reach

Your fiftieth wedding anniversary

Your fortieth birthday

I won’t be able to tease you

About being “over the hill.”

You’ll never go to

Your thirtieth high school reunion

And you’ll never be able to say

“I survived” the twentieth time.

You won’t know that I passed grade ten

Because on February 5^th

For four hours

You sat with three walls between us

Until two,

Dad and I,

Found mom

Whose solitary heart ran

At zero beats per minute.